Trouble pronouncing F sound, especially S to F.

Hello. Would you please give an example of a sentence where you would have to transition from S to F? Or do you mean you are having difficulty saying words like "transform" and "transfer"?

If the former, then the "s" actually sounds a bit more like a "z".

I understand your difficulty, as I experienced a similar problem when learning Polish and trying to pronou

-sf- cluster is not permitted in english. So, you need to split -sf- across syllables.

transform: trans-form

You are correct, an sf cluster is not permitted in English. And the word "transform" is split as "trans-form" and not "tran-sform".

However, the original question has more to do with pronounciation than syllabic breakdown. For example, what about the words "sphinx" and "sphere". Phonologically they sound as "sfinx" and "sfere", yet the words are not split into two syllables "

i can't pronounce the f sound and s sound please help me to pronounce this words

"Svelt" is quite commonly used in English, although it's not an English word.

You might try practicing this, and then try substituting the "f." It just requires a little more air.

What specific words are you having trouble with?

Anonymous I can't pronounce the F-sound without blowing bubbles and spitting. S to F is especially hard, because I seem to pause between the two sounds. I also look funny while trying to go from S to F. How can I re-train myself to have a smooth transition to the F sound?

Whether /sf/ exists as onset in English is irrelevant to learning motor skills. Maybe, yo

raindoctorWhether /sf/ exists as onset in English is irrelevant to learning motor skills.

Not really. Two years ago, you wrote "sf- cluster is not permitted in english. So, you need to split -sf- across syllables."
An /sf/ onset is, of course permitted, and the motor skills involved in producing initial /sf/ are not exactly the same as those involved in p

/sf/ as an initial consonant cluster does break the normal sonority sequencing principle for English. And is only found in a very few loan words. So one can argue that it technically is not a permissible initial cluster. Likewise with /?l/ and /s?/

I hardly think we can describe sphere/spherical as 'loanwords'.

The definition of a loan word is "word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language" see http://www.thefreedictionary.com/loanword

sphere is from Greek and is therefore a loan word by definition. Just because a word has been been naturalized and in long-term wide-spread usag